General sweeping practice is to sweep up dirt with a brush or broom into a concentrated pile and then sweep the accumulated dirt into a dustpan. The dustpan is then emptied into a waste container. Carrying the dustpan and container about with the broom is awkward. It is easy to spill the dirt when transferring from dustpan to container and to leave some dirt behind when sweeping into the dustpan. Another choice is to use an electric vacuum cleaner to sweep the dirt directly into a closed container while completely traversing the floor area. This requires considerable electric power. A long extension cord to an electric outlet is required. This is awkward in many cleaning situations. Although self-contained battery powered electric vacuum cleaners are well known, they can only be used for small area cleaning because they have too little stored power to clean any significant area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,078 issued Aug. 11, 1995 to Courcelles discloses a dustpan that is removably attachable to a broom. The dustpan can be removed from the broom and used to receive the dirt. A hollow tubular handle on the dustpan is attachable to the tube of an external vacuum source such as a central vacuum system. U.S. Pat. No. 2,631,326 issued Mar. 17, 1953 to Smith discloses a mop and squeegee with a suction tube attachable to an external vacuum source.
None of the prior art apparatus provides a simple, self contained means for picking up the pile of swept up dirt that is easy to use.